Ukraine war pushes eurozone inflation to new record

Spiralling energy bills and disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine caused consumer prices in the eurozone to surge by a new record of 7.5 percent, EU statistics agency Eurostat said Friday.
Last month’s rise marked a further acceleration in inflation from February, which at 5.9 percent year-on-year was already a eurozone record, it said.
The surge has been fuelled by a 44.7-percent hike in energy prices over the year as Europe found itself caught in an oil and gas crunch due to tensions with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
European Central Bank (ECB) president Christine Lagarde warned Wednesday that a prolonged Ukraine conflict will keep energy prices and the cost of living spiralling, blighting a post-Covid recovery.
Similar leaps in inflation have been seen in the United States where the Federal Reserve is committed to a long series of interest hikes to cool the economy and stem the price hikes.
But the ECB is reluctant for now to take similar measures, convinced that the rise in the cost of living is linked to the war as well as lingering disruptions to the global supply chains brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. – AFP